In their text, Why Animals Matter: the case for animal protection, Erin E. Williams and Margo DeMello try to accomplish two things, demonstrate the harm of treating animals as commodities, and suggest actions that people can take to change the socio-economic forces which support such commodification. Williams and DeMello also try to point out the positive interconnections between the welfare of animals, humans, and the environment. Their narrative is appropriate for their intended lay audience. Unfortunately, despite its good intentions, the book ultimately fails to rise above other polemical tracts on the animal welfare/rights issues, leaving both vegetarians and omnivores still hungry for a decent argument.

The book's greatest strength lies in how it attempts to make the connections between the increased industrialization of the use of animals in all walks of life with a decrease in their welfare. Industrialization also leads to problems for humans and the environment. This is a tenable and valuable thesis. However, they do not present an argument for it. Instead, the authors state that they will rely on "mere common sense and moral decency" to enable the reader to connect the dots. The result is a presentation of various stomach churning incidents and pieces of information which is supposed to intuitively demonstrate the conclusions to the reader. But abuse rarely has a simple cause and appearances can be deceptive.

Williams and DeMello present a wealth of information designed to assault the reader's senses with the inhumanity of the way largely American industries treat animals. However, the pieces of information they present are insufficient to see the whole picture. For example, they mention the 2006 FDA report concluding that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe, following with a reference to a New York Times editorial calling the report a "victory for biotech companies and a loss for everyone else." (p. 27.) This issue begs for a developed argument. But none is given. The readers are supposed to simply recognize the "correct" position. The partial picture presented leads to overgeneralizations and unproven claims.

While the language is simple, the text requires a well educated reader to recognize some of its greatest weaknesses. For example, in the chapter on animal experimentation, the authors make some assumptions about researchers' desire to participate in environmental enrichment and conclude that it is likely not provided. But this is incorrect. A survey of research institutions indicated that over 90% of 404 respondents provided environmental enrichment to their lab animals. (Silverman, J., Suckow, M., & Murthy, S. Eds. 2007. The IACUC Handbook, 2nd Ed. CRC Press) Environmental enrichment is a part of the federal regulations. The Animal Welfare Act, as clarified in 1996, is explicit with regards to the requirements for dogs and primates. This applies to all who use these animals. Furthermore, those who receive Public Health Service funds or are AAALAC accredited (a voluntary animal lab accrediting body) are required to follow the PHS Guide for extending species typical animal enrichment to all animals used. My experience is that researchers recognize that enrichment reduces distress in their animals, thereby improving research data. This is just one example in this chapter. A more subtle example of information manipulation is when the authors use the example of Vioxx as demonstrating the problems with relying on animal experimentation instead of clinical research. But, they neglect to mention that Vioxx, like all new drugs, was also tested on humans in clinical trials. It is not a case where animals were used instead of humans. Both were used and still the problems were not detected until later.

Sloppy scholarship is partially to blame for the unreliability of the information presented in this text. For example, in chapter two the authors claim that in 2003, only 51 of the 86,300 dairy farms in the U.S. were inspected by state or federal agents. Their source is an editorial from Salon.com. A quick web search demonstrates that in Wisconsin alone, every Grade A dairy farm is inspected twice a year, and every Grade B farm is inspected every two years. With 13, 339 dairy farms in Wisconsin, simple math indicates that Wisconsin alone undermines the editorial's statistic. Editorials are a poor source of information. In the last chapter, instead of reading the original article the authors used an editorial on the article from MSNBC.COM to claim that rats have the capacity to reflect on and weigh options, based on self assessment of knowledge (metacognition). If you look at the original article, the researchers based their conclusions on results from three rats, because five of their rats could not complete the tasks required. This calls the reliability of the information into question.

The text's good intentions are undermined by sloppy scholarship, the appeal to intuition and uneven portrayals of issues. The authors seem unable to avoid slipping into propagandistic terminology, undermining their reliability even in sections that are well supported. They do not even address why animals matter until the last chapter and this chapter is the shortest in the book. It is a disservice to their stated goals to treat this controversial topic as if the conclusions are obvious. The result is a sermon to the choir instead of a valuable tool for change. Animals do matter and there are other texts that do a better job of demonstrating why and what to do about it.

Welcome to Metapsychology.
We feature over 8100 in-depth reviews of a wide range of books and DVDs written by our reviewers from many backgrounds and
perspectives.
We update our front page weekly and add more than twenty new reviews each month. Our editor is Christian Perring, PhD. To contact him, use one of the forms available here.

Metapsychology Online reviewers normally receive gratis review copies of the items they review. Metapsychology Online receives a commission from Amazon.com for purchases through this site, which helps us send
review copies to reviewers. Please support us by making your Amazon.com purchases through our Amazon links. We thank
you for your support!